Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called Saturday on Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Hadi to work on expelling US forces from Iraq immediately.
Khamenei was speaking as sources reported that the US is about to designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and its external branch, the Quds Force, on its black list of foreign terrorist organizations.
“The Iraqi government should do something [to ensure] that American military troops will leave Iraq as soon as possible,” Khamenei’s official website quoted him as saying. He added that the US constitutes a threat on the current democratic process in Iraq.
"You need to do something that Americans would withdraw their military forces from Iraq as soon as possible. Because sending them out have always been a problem wherever they stayed for a long time," Khamenei told Abdul Mahdi.
Khamenei later said that the current government, parliament and political activists in Iraq are undesirable for America, and the Americans are planning to push them out of Iraq's political scene.
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal and Reuters reported this week that the United States would designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization.
Reuters said it spoke with three US officials that confirmed that Trump’s administration would announce the decision as soon as Monday and that concerned defense officials were bracing for the impact.
Two weeks ago, a spokesperson from the Pentagon denied reports published by the New York Times about Washington’s fears on the safety of US troops in Iraq.
The expected US announcement would come ahead of the first anniversary of President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of a 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran and to re-impose sanctions that had crippled Iran’s economy.
